When The Blair Witch Project originally came out, it blew people's minds. For many of us, we remember people talking about it in hushed tones, whispering: 'it's a true story, you know'.
It was shot on a shitty little camera, but still managed to gross $248million (around £188million). That number should impress you, because at the time it was the fifth highest-earning film ever made.
Credit: The Blair Witch Project
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Not bad going for what was essentially a bunch of teenagers being followed around with a camera.
The thing is, the key to this movie's success was the fact that people were convinced it was real. We were made to believe that the three main characters had gone searching for the Blair Witch, gone missing, and the tapes had been recovered a year later. There was a website, missing posters and the actors even used their real names so it looked completely legitimate.
At the time, this would've seemed like a great idea. But what happens when the whole world thinks you're dead? And even worse, what happens when they found out you weren't?
British YouTubers creeped out on a trip to Black Hills Forest. Credit: Newsflare
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Turns out people were fucking furious.
Heather Donahue, famous for crying down the camera (remember when Scary Movie parodied the snot lol), spoke to Broadly about the curse of the Blair Witch.
At the time, the filmmakers did everything they could to make it seem like the actors were dead. They even updated their IMDBs to show 'deceased'.
Heather's mother started receiving sympathy cards; it was at the point where things had gone too far.
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Plus, their careers were affected.
Heather told Broadly: "Being dead? How did it effect my career? Adversely."
When people started realising that the actors were, in fact, alive - it got worse. She continued: "It's very hard for me to talk about the backlash because, for me, it was so directly personal.
"It was my mother getting sympathy cards, it was people coming up to me on the street telling me that they wished I was dead, saying they want their money back.
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"It was me in my 84 Toyota Celica breaking down in LA in La Cienega underneath a billboard with my own face on it. It was a profoundly surreal experience."
And, 15 years later, she's still being faced with questions. I imagine she's pretty bored of telling people that it was just a movie.
However, with the new movie coming out, she's probably wishing she could go camping in the woods for a bit.
Blair Witch is released in cinemas today (September 16).
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Featured image credit: Haxan Films
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